


The Taste of Sugar

by dasfreefree, imagine_that_haikyuu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Female!Reader - Freeform, Fluff and Angst, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24630409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasfreefree/pseuds/dasfreefree, https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagine_that_haikyuu/pseuds/imagine_that_haikyuu
Summary: Semi notices that you've been distant from him ever since the two of you had dinner with your parents. He decides to confront you and figure out what's going on.
Relationships: Semi Eita/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	The Taste of Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> This scenario was originally posted on November 23, 2016 to our [tumblr](https://imagine-that-haikyuu.tumblr.com/post/153580235748/helllooooo-can-you-please-do-a-scenario-where). Some edits have been made since then.
> 
> Writer: Rachel Lauren
> 
> Anonymous asked: helllooooo! can you please do a scenario where semi is confronting his s/o because she's been acting weird around him for the past week only to find out that she doesn't know how to deal with the fact that her parents don't approve of her relationship with him bc he's younger (by like 2 years) which ends up with him comforting her? thank you :)

You smiled across the table at Semi and he thought it was just as sweet as his coffee. No, that’s not quite right. It was more like artificial sweetener: if you aren’t thinking about how it tastes different, then it won’t taste any different than real sugar.

The problem was that he had been purposefully looking for the difference in the taste, and now that he found it, it was the only thing he could taste.

The way you smiled at him wasn’t how you usually did. There was something forced about it, strained, distant even. Combined with the fact that your conversations with him via any means—face-to-face, text, phone calls—were rather one-sided to him for the past week, and that you came up with excuse after excuse to not meet until that afternoon only concerned him more.

The coffee shop was virtually empty, except the two of you, but you still insisted on sitting at one of the outside tables.

“Alright, you need to tell me what’s going on,” he finally said. Your smile faltered and returned in the blink of an eye. You even threw in a forced laugh to disguise the evident tension.

“Eita, I’m not sure what—” He cut you off before you could even finish out the first part of that old, clichéd dialogue.

“And don’t play dumb with me,” he added tersely, finishing the second part of the script you’d seen played out so many times in other places.

Lips pursed together, you nodded and looked somewhere off into that distance. “That obvious, huh?”

He sighed, “Well, it would be hard not to notice when there’s a chasm growing between you and the person you love. You haven’t been yourself at all the past few days, (F/N).”

Semi watched as you fiddled with the red stirring straw in your mug, nervously kneading it between your fingers. You let out a bitter laugh, maybe because “chasm” was such a dramatic choice of words coming from him about such a situation, or maybe because he was right. It wasn’t a “chasm” per se, but more like crack. The problem with cracks, though, is if you don’t tend to them, they only grow larger with more pressure.

“Did something happen after we had dinner with your parents?” His question punctured the heavy silence that you let develop again.

“Yes,” you replied, punctuating it with a throat clearing. This time, you looked directly at him. “You probably gathered from then that my parents are…traditional, to say the least.”

Semi’s usual scowl remained, but his knitted brows hinted worry and confusion more so than anger. “Yeah, that was pretty obvious. Your mom wasn’t too keen on any of my calling you by your first name. That was my first clue.”

You thought back to that night and remembered how she managed to scold him passive-aggressively for that, cleverly using questions to your dad to emphasize how they waited almost until marriage before being on a first-name basis. The memory only made you shake your head in disappointment. Semi leaned closer to you.

“They didn’t ask you anything weird, right?” he asked. His eyes narrowed suspiciously and you imitated this action weakly.

“Define ‘weird’.”

He huffed, leaning back in his seat. “Just spit it out.”

“So the next day, I called to ask my parents what they thought about you and despite their apparent issues, they actually had a lot of positive things to say. Dad even gave the seal of approval for about, mmm, one minute tops,” you recounted. Semi stared hard at you and you felt as if you were going to shrink under his gaze. Avoiding looking directly at him now, you continued, “As I said, my parents are a little more conservative, especially when it comes to dating. They are firm believers in the man being older than a woman in a romantic relationship. So… they just were wondering about that.”

If that tension from earlier was bad, then what exactly could he call this? He wondered what felt more awkward: your behavior over the past week or the way you spoke to him now, so hesitant to spit out the words and too many hand motions from nerves.

“So what did you say?” His tone was noticeably gentler than it had been.

“I said that there is a two-year difference between us. They assumed that meant you’re older than me and… I can’t lie to them so I told the truth.” Eyes fixed firmly on the center of the table, you let out a deep sigh. You could still feel Semi’s stare on you. “Needless to say, they’re not very pleased.”

“So?”

You finally glanced up from the table at Semi. He rose from his seat, maneuvering behind it and lifting it up and setting it back down closer to you. You observed his motions with a questioning look, catching his eyes directly as he joined your side.

“So what if your parents don’t like that you’re older? It’s one thing if you were eighteen and I was sixteen, but we’re adults. Two years isn’t that big a difference.”

He had a point: you thought about yourself and how much growth occurred from when you were sixteen to when you were eighteen, and then again from eighteen to twenty. But after that you felt as if your maturity had plateaued for the past few years. For Semi, it had probably been the same. The problem wasn’t exactly there, though.

A lump formed in your throat, and you were sure that the stinging in your eyes would summon tears not long after.

“The age difference in general isn’t the issue; you could be ten years older and they wouldn’t think twice about it. It’s that you’re _not_ older than me or what’s worse, is that you’re younger.”

“So?” he repeated. He was practically laughing as he said it. Your frustration rose with this, and you wondered how he could be so insensitive to the problem. Those tears were ready to fall too. “(F/N), you don’t have an issue with me being younger, do you?”

“Of course not!” you cried, shaking your head. “If it had been, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Then, there’s no problem,” he said, placing his hand over yours on the table. “Well, other than your parents’ weird, outdated standards on romance, but that’s for them to work on. Not us.”

You smiled affectionately at him, leaning in to press your lips to his cheek. That was the first smile—a genuine, warm grin that he adored—that he had seen from you in a while. Now he could taste the real sugar again, and yes, it did taste far better than the synthetic kind.


End file.
